Wednesday, February 29, 2012

My grandpa was born on Feb. 29th. He passed away a couple of years ago, but it was always funny when we asked how old he was and when he was 80 he told us he just turned 20.

We are full fledged back to ship life. This one's a little different though. It's so big, it doesn't feel like a ship. It feels like a Vegas hotel complex.

There's even an escalator on the ship.

The ship has 4100 passengers on it (most ships usually only have 2100). As crew members, we usually know the least busiest times when to eat in the Garden Cafe. On this ship, there is no such time. It's always busy.

We do 15 shows a week on this ship (have I said that yet?). We have been rehearsing and performing every waking hour since we've been here.

Because of that, I really haven't been on any other floors then the ones we live, work and eat on. Have not seen the gym or some of the other cool paces.

Did stop up to see the water slides.

They're the largest water slides not on dry land.

They look pretty cool.

Also stopped off to see Spice, H2O, the outdoor club for adults.

That's the largest outdoor video screen on a cruise ship. That's a very important fact to some people.

Today, we had a few free hours in St. Thomas, but I didn't get off the ship. I caught up on some of the sleep that I've missed and jumped on my iPad to see what's been happening in the world the past few days. That's one of the things that's not different on this ship. Ship Internet is still criminally slow.

Oh, and another thing that's still the same, you're still going to find shoeless, shirtless hicks walking around in the art gallery

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Last night, we recorded a podcast then packed up everything we're going to need for the next 2 months.

That's what your room looks like when you have to pack up 2 months worth of belongings.

The great part of doing this trip is that we actually have our own apartment that we're leaving from. Every other time we've shoved off to sea, we've had to pack up every single thing we own and stick it in storage or take it with us. This time, we just had to bring clothes and some other small things.

The other great thing about this contract is it's a quick one. That's right, we're doing a short contract. We're finished April 25th.

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale a little before noon. We've never flown into that airport before. It was chaos.

There was a two hour wait, just to get through security. Nuts.

We got to the ship and went through the sign on process.

This is the 3rd largest cruise ship in the world so it's massive. We've only been on the ship for 2 hours and the only thing I've scene are crew areas and the buffet.

Right now, I'm headed to our cabin. We only had 2 hours of sleep lady night and we need our rest. We do 15 shows a week on this ship and our first show is tomorrow. We have 2 rehearsals scheduled for tonight already.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

If you follow this blog or our podcasts, you know that Brett is one of our good friends. We have traveled all over the world with him. To Bar Harbor, on Cruise Ships with Second City and to festivals all over the world with Aphasia.

If you follow the blog and the podcasts, you also know that a day hasn't gone by that Brett and I haven't gotten in to some sort of an argument. There all pretty harmless. Most of them are pretty funny.

We're friends who fight, but he is a good friend. And, as his friend I have to say that his running the marathon is a huge freaking deal.

Who would have thought four years ago, that this guy...

..would be able to run 26 miles?

This guy...

...almost couldn't hike up a simple mountain. It took him almost 3 hours to get to the top. Last year, he and I climbed up the same mountain and it took less than 20 minutes.

Of course, this guy...

...looks like this now.

He's over a hundred pounds lighter and lives a much different lifestyle. He eats better. Works out and runs marathons.

Even though I call him a jerk everyday and can argue with him for hours about mundane things like not walking on my carpet in his street shoes, he's still my good friend.

...And, it pains me to say this, but I'm impressed and proud of the fact that he's running the marathon. Even if it takes him six hours to do it, he's come a long, long way.

Good luck and congratulations, Brett. When you get back, let's just ignore that I wrote this. Jerk.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Every week we do our The Thursday Evening Comedy Podcast. After every episode, we have tons of food and snacks and drinks left over. Jeannie packaged up a bunch of the candy and took it to our rehearsal today.

Everyone dug into it.

It even became a character in one of our scenes. I think it was Sam who said, "You can always count on Candy Bag! Candy Bag always delivers!"At one point, during a poignant moment, Candy Bag tipped over and spilled all over the floor.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

My updates have been sparse lately because the App I use to blog has not been working.Also, things have been a bit uneventful. That has picked up this week.

Jeannie and I are headed back to work. Well, we've been working, but we're going back to work on our big job. We're headed back to a ship.The above photo is of our first meeting with the cast and producers. We started rehearsals Monday afternoon and will be working with our director TJ everyday for the next 3 weeks.

We're going on the BIG ship. We'll only be out to sea for 2 months and then we'll be back to Chicago.I'm very excited to get back into the swing of things and excited to head back out for another contract. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone